Shot over more than a decade in a wide range of both obvious and unexpected locations, Plumb draws a thread between seemingly disparate settings and subjects, illustrating just how intertwined our lives are. Plumb explores our use of animals for entertainment, companionship, food and work, and how their images populate our consciousness, our rituals, our myths and symbols and even our corporate branding. As Plumb shows, many of these relationships are defined by contradiction: we are drawn to the wild nature of animals, we admire their beauty and nobility, we anthropomorphize and even worship them, and yet we strive to control them, to restrict them to the roles we prescribe, to keep them in their place—they are always subject to the whims of our attention and neglect.

Plumb describes her project as having developed out of her childhood experiences of urban space and transforming into a profound investigation into the discontinuous threads that connect and separate nature from contemporary life. She writes:

This series of photographs examines the essence of our connection, as well as our fragmentation from the natural. I am interested in the ever-increasing disconnection that exists between humans and the natural world. The work explores simulation, consumption, destruction and reconstruction, as well as notions of endurance and the reality of loss.

Plumb’s work is in the permanent collections at the Museum of Contemporary Photography; the Notebaert Nature Museum, Chicago; and the Beijing Natural Cultural Center in China.

Jen Bekman Gallery is proud to announce that Beth Dow is one of four artists to receive a 2011 McKnight Artist Fellowship for Photography. Mnartists.org describes the fellowship as "designed to identify and support outstanding mid-career Minnesota artists." Beth receives a stipend and access to development opportunities, and will also be part of an exhibition. Beth Dow's current project, Here, Nor There, "employs tongue-in-cheek conceptualism to cross-reference historical and local architectural landscapes which re-imagine history and space."

You can check out the rest of the article here and view some of Beth's work at JBG here.

We've quickly reached the one month mark of Hey, Hot Shot!, and I decided to delve back into the archives of gallery shows past with a special look at 2008 First Edition Hot Shot Derek Henderson. A 40" x 50" print of Reid's Farm by Henderson used to hang in the office and I was mesmerized by it. I relished the times when I could be alone in the office and take as long as I wanted to gaze at the image in silence.

There is a certain type of work I gravitate towards, and I tend to shy away from anything involving people (just a personal thing). However, there is something magical about this photo to me. At first, the subject matter seems straightforward—and Derek's entire Mercy Mercer project is indeed a documentation of the Waikato River in New Zealand and its people. But where so often documentary work easily hands you the story, Derek has crafted a project that both tells of a community while simultaneously creating images that allow for the viewer to create their own narrative. While recently flipping through the pages of Derek's gorgeous book of this series, on each page, I created a new story of my own making.

Even with my aforementioned aversion to people-focused work, I find the portraits magnetic. In Reid's Farm, contemporary folk are surrounded by contemporary objects like nylon fold out chairs, yet the work takes me more to the Hudson River Valley painters than to anything contemporary.

On this note, I am pleased to share that Derek has forthcoming solo show at the gallery. You can visit his site or find his book here for a sneak preview at what you may see on our walls.

Also, don't forget: Hey, Hot Shot! is open RIGHT NOW! Since its inception in 2005, Hey, Hot Shot!, the premier international photography competition, has provided one hundred and twenty-nine photographers from all over the world with unrivaled exposure, support and recognition. This year marks the 5th anniversary of the competition and the 7th anniversary of Jen Bekman Gallery.

In addition to the hallmark awards of past competitions, this year we are offering a $5,000 honorarium and five Curator's Choice Awards. The deadline for submissions is August 22, 2010 at 8:00 p.m. (EDT) and there will be only one season of competition in 2010, so apply now!

Kate Bingaman-Burt is probably feeling a strong breeze on her face these days—and it's likely from the whirlwind of deserved attention spinning 'round the release of her forthcoming book from Princeton Architectural Press, Obsessive Consumption: What Did You Buy Today?. Full of witty annotated illustrations documenting years of daily purchases, Kate comes forward not-so-guiltily revealing that yes, she too splurges on an occasional new dress. Through her drawings, and her long-running blog of the same name, Kate—without reprimand—asks us to think about how much we really consume and how many dollars we spend. While most of us would probably avoid long afternoons staring at our credit card debt, Kate takes on the challenge of first looking, then drawing, forcing herself to confront any buyers' remorse she might feel head-on.

Unsurprisingly, a few little publications have picked up on Kate's collection of consumables, and offered their own thoughts and inquiries on this delightful new book:

Untitled by Kate Bingaman-Burt

If you're a weekly reader of the New York Times and happened to pick up the annual T-style magazine on design this weekend, you would have seen the fuschia glow of an illustrated faux Eames Lounger illustrated by Kate. Andy Port writes, "Read from beginning to end, ‘‘Obsessive Consumption’’ reveals a happy (if somewhat guilty) grasshopper who likes a good bargain as much as she likes a good burrito. Bingaman-Burt engages in the same name-brand culture as the rest of us, but in her life, at least, it’s art."

Fast Company features a slideshow of illustrations from the book, starting off with a marigold drawing of her MBNA credit card statement. In the accompanying words by Alissa Walker, Kate is quoted as saying, "This credit card was opened while I was in graduate school,"... "I just recently paid off a computer that had been out of commission for about two years." Ouch. That is a statement not to be forgotten.

Over on the Herman Miller blog, Cerentha Harris ventures into Kate's workspace to learn more about how she decorates her office, the desk accessory she can't do without, and her creative inspirations.

CH: What or who inspires you?

KBB: Big permission-givers to me have been: David Byrne, Tibor Kalman, M. Sasek, Saul Steinburg, Ray and Charles Eames, Joseph Beuys, Walls of Sound (Galaxie 500, Deerhunter – music that fills up and overwhelms and how to translate that into artwork), Fluxus and Zine Culture to name a few. Also: yard sales, thrift stores, objects that look like a designer didn’t design them and teaching my rad students.

You can buy your own copy of Kate's book directly from her website, which comes signed and with a random daily drawing for a limited period of time. Stay tuned for more news to consume as the book hits the shelves, and make sure you're signed up for the 20x200 mailing list: there's more from Kate headed your way.

It's the real world you see in Nina Berman's tender but unflinching photographs of Ty Ziegel, a former Marine sergeant so badly disfigured by a suicide-bomb attack in Iraq that back home small children stare at him, even after 50 reconstructive surgeries. It would be obscene to aestheticize his situation, and Berman doesn't aim to. What she does is present it forthrightly, with compassion but without pathos — bravely, which is how he presents himself. We have to read a lot into Ziegel because his face sometimes seems to have a limited range of expression. Gently but firmly, Berman directs you to see the man behind the mask. Do these pictures belong in an art museum? Of course they do, because as long as one of the things art does is use images to teach, this is art.

The 2010 Whitney Biennial runs through May 30th in New York and, as TIME Magazine says, Berman's work is "not to be missed."

Oh, the weather outside is frightful—slush!—but in here it's so delightful. Thanks in part to our trusty heater, but mostly because of the gorgeous paintings of Clare Grill, whose solo-exhibition What You're Told closes this Saturday. If the painting above doesn't warm you up, I guarantee that Clare's artist statement will.

Clare writes:

I didn't dare eat candy during Lent because the saints were watching. Our old house was haunted – our dad said so. We imagined a wolf roamed our neighborhood because it was fun to be scared. I thought our family was ideal. I believed in Santa until I was 13. I clung tightly to the things I was taught, my heavy cloaks of security. Like most, I've unraveled them slowly and steadily, being careful not to rip out all the seams through the years.

These paintings, however, aren't just run-of-the-mill nostalgia. "Ms. Grill’s expressionistic portraits can remind you at times of the work of Elizabeth Peyton, who made it big painting acquaintances at art-world parties. But Ms. Grill is actually a better painter, suggesting she will make a success of whatever subject she chooses," writes Benjamin Genocchio for The New York Times. Especially when seen up close and in person, Clare's intuitive technique, "makes you notice the paint as much as the pictures."

While the snow shows no signs of stopping, we really hope that you'll slog over the the gallery and check out these wonderful paintings before the show closes on Saturday!

A photograph by Jen Bekman Gallery artist Nina Berman is featured in the Wall Street Journal today as part of an article titled "The Whitney Biennial Lightens Up". Kelly Crow writes, "The country's pre-eminent survey of new American art has a reputation for focusing on angry or anxious young things. But the latest edition, opening Feb. 25 at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, aims to be something else: fun."

About Nina's work Kelly writes:

The biennial doesn't abandon politics altogether, but Mr. Bonami says he went looking for art that reflects the American psyche about war without being "bombastic." New York photographer Nina Berman is showing a series about the postwar daily life of former Marine Sgt. Ty Ziegel, who was severely disfigured in a car bomb in Iraq but returned home and married his fiancée, Renee Kline."

You can read the full article, which features a slideshow as well as profiles of Charles Ray and Aurel Schmidt, online or in today's print edition. More information about The Whitney Biennial: 2010 is available at the Whitney's website.

Jen Bekman Gallery artist Nina Berman spoke with Mike Melia of PBS' Art Beat to discuss her work, particularly the series Marine Wedding, which will be exhibited at the upcoming 2010 Whitney Biennial. In the article, Associate Curator of the Biennial Gary Carrion-Murayari says of Berman's work:

You come away with a real emotional connection to the individual she is depicting. Anybody could take a picture of someone who is disfigured and make a shocking image. These go beyond that and get to the emotional experience of soldiers.

PBS' site also features an audio interview with Nina. Click HERE to read the full text and to hear Mike and Nina's conversation about her exceptional bodies of work, Purple Hearts, Homeland and Marine Wedding.

The clock is ticking, but you've still got two and a half hours to get your hands on one of these amazing editions at 20x200 by painter Clare Grill, whose solo exhibition, What You're Told is currently hanging in the gallery. We've been sitting amidst Clare's work for the last two weeks, and the colors, textures and narratives that comprise this work are truly captivating. These prints do an incredible job of translating the motion and richness of her pieces in a way we can make available to every single one of you.

To pick up one of Clare's prints for 20% off, click on any of the works below, then enter the code RIDONK at Google checkout. This offer ends at 2 p.m. (EST) today, so do not delay!

Since last summer, I have been having a back and forth with JBG artist Holly Lynton as she works on developing her newest body of work. One of the great aspects of my job is getting to be a part of the process: watching projects develop and getting sneak peaks into all of the images that photographers go though before choosing what will make the final cut.

Holly's new images, photographs of the relationships between man and animal, have such a quiet intensity. It is as if she captures these moments of connection that transcend the implied chaos and noise that is surrounding the subjects. Think of a beautiful and peaceful picture of a man whose face is covered in bees. In the above work, it is this almost "divine" moment between the girl and these turkeys amidst squawking I can only imagine and the commotion of flying feathers - an often used cinematic gesture for any type of chaos or crash in a rural scene. She becomes, as Holly and I have been referring to her in our back and forth, "The Turkey Madonna."

Holly normally likes to keep her projects under wraps until completion but thankfully I could convince her to let me show one image from her current work in development. Here is what Holly had to say via email about her recent work:

I left New York for Massachusetts farm country in part to live the locavore life, defined mainly as eating locally, sustainably, and organically. What I hadn't anticipated is how it is more often than not an extension of people's spiritual lives. In my photography, I was initially drawn to photographing individuals who confront dangers in nature, allowing themselves to be vulnerable. Examples of these are bee keepers who wear no protective clothing and catfish noodlers who fish for seventy pound catfish with their bare hands. While photographing them, I watched them enter a transformative and meditate state that I see also exists in certain farm activities. I observed a reverence for nature rather than the absence of fear. Much of the current literature and film presents the negative sides of industrial farming without enough celebration of the positive aspects of small scale, sustainable, local, organic farms. I am interested in photographing people who work with animals on these farms and in the wild to expose the spiritual conviction they have for this way of life, as a gesture to my commitment and belief in its importance as well.